Monday 30 April 2018 - Day 57
Nido’s parked up at a free aire in the lovely hillside medieval town of Puy L’Eveque. I say it’s lovely as that’s what the guide book tells me. I don’t know it’s lovely because we can’t leave the van for long….because it won’t stop raining! We’re getting very bad cabin fever now, having been stuck in the van pretty much full time since Saturday afternoon.
It started to rain heavily late on Saturday night and continued all through yesterday. Given this, there wasn’t much point in moving on, so we stayed in Castelsagrat. The rain stopped for a while around 1600, when we snuck out to blink in the daylight and stretch our legs. Even on our circuit of the village the rain started again - torrential, cold, sideways rain that soaked us from head to toe. And for anyone that’s travelled in a campervan, you’ll know the misery of trying to dry clothes in a living space of 4m x 2m. As we weren’t on electric hook up, after two stationary days and with zero sun to power our leisure battery via the solar panel, we had to conserve energy, so no heating.
This morning the rain continued as we drove first to upload and unload fluids back in Montjoi, then find a garage to fill up with LPG, before driving to the aire at Castelnau Montratier, adjacent to a line of four old windmills on top of the hill above the village. We attempted a walk but…you guessed it. It was pretty remote, the small village road was surprisingly busy and locals kept driving in and out of the aire for some reason, so we moved on. The Puy L’Eveque aire occupies part of a large open car park. The Gendarmaire Nationale station is across the way, so we shouldn’t get any problem from the chavs in their ford fiestas that plagued the last stopover. Cathy cooked a lovely, hot one-pot dinner. I contributed by walking out (yes, in the rain!) to buy some delicious bread and bottle of Cahors wine - well we are in the Cahors region after all. So it’s another early night with a good book; we’re starting to run out of things to read. There’s supposed to be a small market here tomorrow so if the weather gods allow, we hope to pop down to buy some fruit, vegetables and meat and take a look around what appeared (through the rain) to be a beautiful medieval hill-top town. Did I mention it’s not stopped raining…….?
I know just how you feel. We have dogs so have to go out ... multiple sets of clothes drying.
ReplyDeleteHave you come across Book Bub? This is a link to kindle and iTunes discounted books anything from free to £2? You get a daily email with the genre that you like. Books are not heavy on the download data.
I don't know how long you have left on your trip, but if the rain is incessant, we look at a Europe weather map and move to where there is sunshine. Hope it picks up for you.
Dogs as well! Could be worse - we could have young children to entertain! Thanks for the tip on the books - we get a daily free books email which has been useful. We're heading north slowly for a week house sitting near Limoges. For weather I look at wxcharts.eu to try and find sunshine - there's a gap in the market for an app - let's call it 'Run for the Sun'. ;-)
DeleteIf it can help a little bit: the weather isn't any better here, our garden now has 3 ponds... Yes, rain, rain, and cold, very cold... And even if we are pretty busy preparing our first long trip, we don't like it.
ReplyDeleteSoon the weather will turn and those weather gods will send you sunshine, I am sure!!!
Last year when we were "driven by rain" thru Brittany we stopped at a run down aire that was quite full. It had small lakes in it ! A very large French couple returned to their van conversion with an alsation the size of a small carthorse. They were drenched. They piled into the van without a hint of despair. "Nutters"thought I !
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that you are having a wet time. Hope it bucks up for you. We've had some torrential downpours here but its hot. Too humid at times. Thirsty work ! Keep larfin.